While David saw the hurricane as a warning, the rest of us saw it as confirmation that we had a chance of surviving in this new world.
Chapter Fifteen
Over the next couple of days, life got back to normal as the hurricane was forgotten, and we got back into our usual routine of repairing boats, tending the gardens and foraging. On one fishing trip, Jon, CJ, David and I went out to try to get some tuna as we’d not had any in a while. We didn’t invite David but when he heard what we were planning, he asked if he could come along. The others weren’t keen, but I figured some time spent out on the water together might help us work out our differences, so I was happy for him to join us. It wasn’t until we were returning, having had no luck, that David’s motivation became clear.
We were running along the outside of Tilloo Cay close to the rocks, trying to see if anything interesting had been cast up by the storm. CJ and Jon were sitting up front and David was standing beside me at the helm.
‘Hey, Rob. I’ve been wanting to have a word with you, away from Jack and the others.’ David was speaking quietly so he couldn’t be overheard. ‘Look, I know you’re a sensible person, and I know you’ve invested a lot of time in the garden boats, but you’ve got to see we can’t survive forever out on the water. Eventually, we’re going to have to move back to the land, and to do that, we need to have a safe area, somewhere we’ve cleared of infected.’
‘In theory, I agree with you.’ I, too, kept my voice as quiet as possible. ‘It’s just there’s no way we could ever actually do it. How do you expect to be able to take on the infected?’
‘We’ve got guns. We can use them.’
‘We’ve only got five between us, and very little ammunition.’
‘We can get more.’ David turned to look at me, ‘I’m convinced there are plenty of guns on the sport-fishing boats in Boat Harbour. There will be bullets there too.’
‘Just how would we get them off? Those boats are infested with infected. You of all people should know that.’
‘Oh, I’m sure we can work something out.’
‘David, even if we got more guns, most of the people here have never used one before.’ I was beginning to get annoyed. ‘They’re certainly not capable of using them effectively. That takes a lot of training.’
‘We can train them, you and me.’ There was a tone in David’s voice that was starting to worry me. ‘I’ve seen you shoot. You’re pretty good.’
‘That’s from a distance and from the safety of the water. I doubt I could do it nearly as well if I was on land and the infected were coming at me.’
‘But we need to do something. We can’t just sit and wait.’ David was getting louder all the time. ‘At the moment, the infected have pretty much won. We’re all but defeated. We need to start taking the war to them.’
I didn’t like the direction David was heading but before I could say anything, there was a shout.
‘Hey, what’s that?’ CJ was pointing to a large white bird with a long tail that had flown up from the rocks, startled by our presence.
‘It’s a tropicbird.’ I’d seen them before on my travels.
‘What’s it doing in amongst the rocks?’
‘Probably nesting.’
‘Where there’re nests, there’ll be eggs!’ Jon had a gleam in his eye. ‘God, I haven’t had eggs in ages.’
I felt my mouth water at the thought. Until then, I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed them.
‘D’you think it would be safe to go ashore and look for some?’ CJ clearly didn’t have the same aversion to eating the young of birds as she did to eating baby dolphins.
I scanned the shore. There were no infected in sight. There were also no bushes or trees on this side of the island. It was too exposed and drenched in salt blown in from the sea for anything substantial to grow. No bushes meant nowhere for the infected to hide, and going ashore would be relatively safe. We would have plenty of time to get back to the boat, or leap for the safety of the water, if we saw any coming.
‘Okay, but we need to take care. Jon, David, you stay with the boat. Keep the engine running and make sure you keep it away from the rocks. CJ, you and I’ll go ashore. Any sign of danger and it’s back in the boat. If you can’t make it to the boat, just jump into the sea. Jon can pick us up. Everyone clear?’ There were nods all round.
Jon pulled the runabout up to the rocks and, timing it for the top of a wave, first CJ and then I stepped onto the rocks. I glanced around nervously. Being on land just didn’t feel right any more. I thought of our last venture ashore and how it had come so close to ending badly.
‘Hey, I’ve found one!’ CJ was a few yards to my left and was pointing down into a crevice in the rocks. There, sitting on a nest that was little more than a few scraps of dried seaweed, was a large egg, its white surface speckled with brown.
I reached down and picked it up, finding it warm to the touch. ‘Right, let’s see how many more we can get.’
We walked slowly along the rough rocks, peering into every crack and hollow that might hide more nests, Jon keeping level with us in the runabout, ready to pick us up at a moment’s notice. CJ turned out to be much more adept at spotting the eggs than I was, and I spent most of my time keeping guard while she searched. She’d found eight eggs by the time the first infected appeared in the distance. I didn’t know whether it could tell we were there, but it was moving fast towards us. I looked round and saw another one coming from the opposite direction. I turned towards the sea. ‘Jon. Infected.’
Jon pulled the runabout up to the rocks and CJ stepped on board. The waves took the boat away before I could follow her. I looked round. The infected were closing and I could see more appearing in the distance. I wondered how they’d known we were there. Was our scent carried on the wind? Was it the noise of the boat’s engine? I had no time to dwell on it. Jon manoeuvred the runabout back up to the rocks and I jumped on board.
As Jon took the boat away from the shore, CJ showed off her prize. We drooled over the thought of fresh eggs. None of us had had eggs in months and it would make a welcome change to our diet of fish and other seafood, interspersed with the occasional serving of canned vegetables.
‘How are we going to cook them?’ Jon licked his lips in anticipation. ‘I like mine fried.’
‘No, it’s got to be omelettes, a few herbs, maybe even some paprika if we’ve got any left.’ CJ’s pallet was more sophisticated than Jon’s.
‘How about poached?’ David was just as eager for the taste of something different.
‘Guys, we’ve got eight eggs, and there’re six of us, seven if David joins us.’ I looked over at David, who nodded. ‘I think the only way we’re going to be able to split them fairly is if we go for scrambled ... And besides, I like scrambled best.’
There were howls of protest from the others, but eventually they relented.
‘Okay, we can have them scrambled, but I’m going to be the one making them, right?’ CJ glared at Jon and me, daring us to disagree with her. She was always unimpressed with our attempts at cooking, and she wasn’t going to let us ruin this unexpected treat.
Back at the catamaran, CJ cracked the eggs into a large bowl and mixed in a small amount of our remaining margarine. She added some black pepper and the last of our paprika before whisking them until they were light and fluffy. While she was doing this, Jon lit the barbeque and had a hot pan ready for her by the time the eggs were prepared.
Jon sniffed the pan as the eggs were cooking. ‘They smell a bit funny.’
‘I’m sure they’ll taste fine.’ I was pretty confident; after all eggs were eggs. ‘They can’t be that different just because they don’t come from a chicken.’
‘Right. Plates.’ CJ spooned out seven equal portions.
Jimmy was the first to take a mouthful and he immediately spat it over the side. ‘Urgh. Tastes like rotten fish.’
The rest of us stared down at the eggs in front of us. Jon tentatively tasted some and sp
at it out as well. ‘Yeuch. No offence, CJ, but these are inedible.’
‘It’s not my fault.’ CJ sounded hurt.
‘I wasn’t blaming you.’ Jon rubbed her shoulder in a consolatory manner, ‘It must be the fish the birds eat. It must get into the eggs somehow.’
I was deflated. I thought we’d found a welcome new food source but we hadn’t, and none of us would be trying tropicbird eggs again.
‘Well, if we’re not going to be eating, you might as well give me a lift back to my boat.’ David gave me a meaningful look, ‘We can finish the conversation we were having earlier.’
I’d hoped David had forgotten about that, but clearly he hadn’t and I figured I might as well get it over and done with.
‘Okay, sure.’
Almost as soon as we were out of earshot of those on the catamaran, David started up again. ‘Look, Rob, you’ve got to see that it’s them or us. We need to strike back. We need to do something. We can’t just sit and wait, letting the infected pick us off one by one.’
‘Just what are you suggesting?’
‘We’ve got to treat this like a war. It’s the only way we’ll survive. In fact, when you think about it, it is a war, Rob, whether you accept it or not. It’s a war and, at the moment, they’re winning. There’re only a handful of us left, and as time goes on, there will be fewer and fewer. It’s now or never. We need to strike back now, before it’s too late. We need to fight. We need to look at the big picture, not just at us surviving here from day to day, but the long term. We can start by taking back the peninsula around the lighthouse, but once we’ve done that we need to push on and clear them off the rest of the island. We need to annihilate them, push them into the sea. We need to do it for us, for our future ...’
David was ranting and I tried to cut him off.
‘David, listen to me. There’re not enough of us. It would be suicidal to even try. The best we can do is stay on the boats and hope the infected eventually die off or something.’
‘You just can’t see it, can you?’ David was shouting now. ‘You fucking civilians, you’re all the same. You never see that sometimes war is necessary, no matter what the cost. We need to think of the big picture and do whatever it takes to win. It’s the only way we can guarantee our safety and our future. Yes, some of us will die, but in a war the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Sometimes you need to make sacrifices. Sometimes difficult decisions need to be taken. Can’t you see? It’s the only way we’ll win. It’s the only way we can win.’
The way David was speaking, the words he was using, were starting to worry me. ‘David, calm down!’
‘Don’t tell me to calm down!’ David yelled aggressively. ‘I thought you were smarter than this, Rob. I thought if I could just speak to you on your own, I could make you see sense, but you’re as bad as the rest of them. You just don’t get it. If we just sit here, we’ve let them win. We belong on the land, and they have taken it from us. You need to think of the big picture. You need to think about what’s best for humanity as a whole. It’s our duty to survive, to carry on the human race. We need the land. Our boats won’t last forever. Things can go wrong, things can break, and you end up on the shore like Dan did.’
‘Don’t bring Dan into this!’ I was angry at him for trying to use what had happened to the McGanns in this way.
‘But don’t you see? If we’d cleared out the infected, it wouldn’t have mattered that his boat broke free in the night. Am I the only one who sees that?’
‘Right, like we could possibly clear every infected off the main island.’
‘You’ve just got no imagination, Rob. I can see how it can be done. I can see that it has to be done.’ There was a note of euphoria in David’s voice. ‘The fight back has to start here, with us, or humanity is lost forever.’
‘David, you sound like you’re losing it.’
‘Are you saying I’m mad?’ David was back to being aggressive. ‘I’m not mad. I can just see everything more clearly than the rest of you. I can see we’ve got no future if we don’t try it. Humanity’s got no future.’
‘Look, David, that’s us back at your boat. I think you need to go in and get out of the sun.’
As I drove away, I could hear David shouting after me, ‘You just can’t see it, Rob. We don’t have any choice. We need to fight back now or we’ll all be lost.’
I wondered if I should tell Jack about this, but I thought better of it. Maybe David was just letting off steam and would be fine once he’d had time to calm down. After all, he couldn’t possibly be serious about trying to take on the infected. He must realise it would mean certain death.
***
While David was obsessed with taking back the land, for the rest of us food was still the big issue. The garden boats were coming along well, but it would still be several months before the first of the crops were ready to harvest. Our need for fresh fruit and vegetables drove us ever further afield, searching for anything that might tide us over until then. Before the hurricane, we’d been as far north as Green Turtle without much success, so we turned our attention to the south once more.
According to the cruisers’ guide, there had been a small community at the southern end of the Sea of Abaco called Little Harbour. According to Andrew, it had been a bit of a wild place before the outbreak; beach parties, pig roasts and all-night drinking sessions under the full moon. It was unlikely we’d find much there but it was possible, and even if it was only a new supply of easily accessible coconuts it would be worth the effort. There might even be a few boats anchored up there with cans of food or other useful things on board.
We left early, Jon, Mike, Jimmy and myself in the runabout, and entered Little Harbour shortly before midday. Jon put the boat into neutral and we drifted in the middle of the small bay. Two boats floated at anchor and the mast of a third stuck out of the water where it had sunk. I scanned the shore with the binoculars but could see no infected. Nothing moved. There was a small, semi-open wooden building that seemed to be a bar a few feet from the water’s edge, its floor made of sand. Part of its roof was missing, damaged undoubtedly by the recent storm, and the picnic tables that had once nestled below shady trees were lying on their sides amongst fallen palm fronds and coconuts. Here and there, half-buried beer bottles stuck out of the sand.
Before the world collapsed, this would have been an idyllic place to spend a summer’s afternoon, drinking cocktails and wasting away the hours, cooled by a gentle breeze from the ocean. I thought about days I’d spent like that and wondered if I’d ever be able to do the same again. I did my best to push these thoughts from my mind before they started getting me down.
Other than the palm trees, there was nothing useful within our reach. Even the coconuts that lay beneath them were out of bounds. There could be infected hiding in the enclosed parts of the bar and if there were, they’d be on us before we could make it back to the runabout. We turned our attention to the boats. Mike banged on the hull of the first one and a cacophony of sound erupted from it. I shook the can of spray-paint we always carried for this purpose and drew a skull and crossbones on it. We went over to the second and found it too had infected on board. I marked it in the same way. We tried the third boat, tying onto the mast while Jon and Mike dived down to see if there was anything worth salvaging. There wasn’t. This was depressing and it looked like the whole day might be a bust.
‘What now?’ Mike was standing at the wheel with his hand on the throttle.
‘We go back, I guess.’ I disliked the idea of returning with nothing. ‘There’s not much else we can do.’
‘What about going a bit further south?’ Jon looked across at me. ‘I was looking at the cruisers’ guide last night. There’s another settlement a few miles down the coast.’
I glanced at my watch and thought about Jon’s suggestion. It was still early and we had plenty of time before we’d have to start for home.
‘I don’t know. Our plan was only to go as far as
Little Harbour. That’s all we agreed with the others.’ I was nervous about making any changes. If something went wrong, no one would know where to find us.
‘Come on. It won’t take long. We’ll just take a look, see if it’s worth coming back.’ Jon was keen and I could see from their faces that Mike and Jimmy were too.
‘Okay, but just to take a look.’ The words were barely out of my mouth before Mike pushed the throttle forward and we were off, heading round the point that marked the eastern side of Little Harbour.
‘Hey Mike, slow down a second, there’s something on the beach up ahead.’
‘What is it?’ Jimmy craned his neck trying to get a better view.
‘Don’t know. Let’s get a little closer.’ Mike angled the runabout towards the shore.
‘It’s a shipping container!’ Jon exclaimed.
Sure enough it was a shipping container, some twenty feet long and eight feet high, nestled in the sand. Judging by its position, it couldn’t have been there long and most likely it had blown ashore in the storm. Mike manoeuvred the runabout so we could get a better look.
‘D’you think there’s anything inside it?’ Jimmy was excited by the possibility.
‘Hang on, something’s not right.’ At first I couldn’t put my finger on it but then it hit me. The sand in front of one of the doors had been cleared away and it lay slightly ajar. From all I’d seen of the infected, they’d probably have been unable to work out how to open the doors, and they’d definitely have been incapable of working out that they’d need to clear the sand away first. This meant only one thing: there had been other people here, uninfected people, and they’d been here recently.
‘I think we need to check this out.’ Jon was staring at the container as he spoke.
He was right and there wouldn’t be too great a risk. The container was close to the water’s edge and I could see a good distance along the beach in both directions. There were dunes at the back of the beach, but I could see the top of the bar sticking over them and the area around it looked pretty clear.
For Those In Peril (Book 1): For Those In Peril On The Sea Page 21